Barbados

...these recent stories are a cause for concern

Litter a problem on boardwalkSometime ago a friend told me a story. It is timely for me to repeat it. He said, Barbadians are house proud, however humble they tend to keep the inside of their homes and the surroundings clean and tidy.



However, once they venture outside onto the roads and highways it is a different matter. Empty food boxes and containers are thrown through car windows, empty cigarette boxes receive the same treatment, all sorts of litter is thrown into the streets of our lovely island.

Gully Shame
"It is absolutely shameful the amount of garbage that is dumped into our gullies. It goes into our water supplies; so we are actually poisoning ourselves, which doesn't make any sense," she said.

Barbados merchants urged to treat Bridgetown betterBRIDGETOWN, Barbados (BGIS): Some Barbados merchants have been chided for their “unacceptable” treatment of the capital Bridgetown as it relates to garbage disposal.

Minister o…

Canada.com: "Barbadian Chesterfield (a. k. a. 'Chester') Browne's passion for creating and mixing tasty rum cocktails has blossomed into a career that sees him jetting around the world representing Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. and the Barbados Tourism Authority.

I met the jolly drink master last fall at the finale of Toronto's Caribbean Week. With a line snaking well past his eye-catching rum-making table --artistically arranged with every imaginable fruit, juice, fresh spice, and cocktail ingredient--Browne was the hit of the fete."

(Go Bajan‎): "BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Barbados is gearing up for another action-packed year with the unveiling of its 2009 Calendar of Festivals & Events. With lively music, performing arts, film and culinary festivals, as well as exciting surfing, polo, cricket, domino, golf and horse racing tournaments throughout the year, there has never been a better reason to visit Barbados. www.visitbarbados.org:"

Opodo travel news: "The Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) has launched the Gourmet Card, which offers savings of up to 25% on meals at participating restaurants across the Caribbean island.

Part of a promotional initiative to highlight the quality of cuisine available in Barbados, the card will be valid from 15 April to 14 December this year.

Reportedly endorsed by restaurant critic and newspaper columnist Michael Winner, the Gourmet Card can be ordered on its own dedicated website."

International Travel Examiner: "It’s hard to even know where to begin your adventure when visiting Barbados, a very well developed island only 21 miles long and 14 miles wide. The island does have the largest spa in the Caribbean located at Sandy Lane so you might start there. Take a deep breath though and don’t try to take it all in, you can return another time too. One way to get a good idea of the island overall is to hop on an Island Safari Tour, which will take you just about everywhere from the highest cliff on the island to the gullies, forest and remote bays and all in a 4 X 4 Land Rover, of course."

Eleanor Jordan, Tourism Development Officer, Ministry of Tourism, Barbados delivers the welcome at the launch of the "Tourism in the Gully" Series. Location - Welchman Hall Gully, Welchman Hall, St. Thomas, Barbados.

Welchman Hall Gully, Barbados: "If you like nature, hiking (at any level), plants, culture and natural history, then Welchman Hall gully must not be missed.

The tranquil feel of the gully will instantly strike you. It is a place where you can experience a piece of nature and imagine what the island was like 300 years ago. It is a touch of tropical forest, mixed with Barbadian and other exotic tropical plants."

I don't think a Bajan would have spent so much for such lousy service or food...well maybe the lousy service but definitely not if it included tasteless food

Times Online: "The return flight for two to Barbados, best available class, is £14,708 on British Airways, £9,504 on Virgin, which is better anyway. So I saved £5,204 on my trip.

Just as well, because my Sandy Lane bill, after adjustment for double charging, was £93,726 for 21 nights — £4,463 a night. Could end up more with the pound dropping like the Zimbabwean dollar. No wonder the rich were squealing."

Maybe Sandy Lane should hire a Barbados chef or at least someone who knows something about Barbados Food.... since according to Winner

The three best meals I had in Barbados were at Fisher Pond Great House. I took Sandy Lane’s chairman, with his terrific family. They loved it. The chairman wrote great praise in the guest book.
I said to MacPherson, purveyor of the worst food ever, “I had the most marvellous lunch at …

I see him almost everyday as I walk the Brandons-Batts Rock beach.Fishing constantly and catching never...I think the fish have recognized him now...I call him the constant Barbados fisherman

I really found it interesting to read some memories of Errol Barrow by Angela cole.......

Calgary Herald: "Vacationing Lindsay Blackett, the first black cabinet minister in Alberta history, was sitting in the parliamentary cafeteria in Barbados on Tuesday, waiting for staff to hook up a TV for Barack Obama's inaugural speech.

He was with his second cousin, Steven Blackett, who by remarkable family coincidence is also a culture minister in the government of Barbados.

They were feeling 'enormously proud,' Blackett told me by phone. 'As a black person, you have a special feeling today, especially knowing what so many people have gone through to get to this point --people who have suffered far more than I have.'"

A friend suggested to me that Michael Winner should have gone to Brown Sugar Restaurant.......for some good Bajan foodThe Sunday Times My friend Gordon Ramsay famously said, “Michael Winner knows nothing about food.” At last I’ve found someone who knows less about food than me.Not only less about food, but less about presentation, about how to treat people . . . in fact I’ve met the most awful example of the so-called “hospitality industry” I’ve come across in 70 years of eating in the finest restaurants all over the world. Quite a nonachievement. This man is ridiculous.Stop. Don’t get overexcited. “Calm down, dear, it’s only a chef.” He’s Grant MacPherson, culinary director and head chef of Sandy Lane, Barbados. His food is unbelievably awful.

The Irish Times IWAS DELIGHTED that Caroline Walsh focused on the plight of Ireland’s lost tribe, the Red Legs, in her article a couple of weeks ago on Barbados. This group, made up of the descendants of 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into the white slave trade between 1652 and 1659, have been largely ignored, apart from in Seán O’Callaghan’s wonderfulTo Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland , published almost 20 years ago. They were innocent Irish people who were rounded up from across the country by teams of Oliver Cromwell’s “man-catchers”, bound in chains and shipped to Barbados to work on sugar plantations. Their descendants are still there today – some of them in absolute poverty – isolated, unassimilated and uneducated. It is about time we acknowledge them, our beleaguered kinsmen, innocent victims first of British injustice, then of landlord cruelty and now of our lack of interest.

The Nation Newspaper : "STEEL PAN MUSIC played loudly under a sunny and cloudless sky, inviting and encouraging the thousands to the island shores.

People dressed in shorts and sun hats from all parts of the world were laughing and smiling.

There was a feeling of celebration and there was cause to be.

It was a first for the tourism calendar, since ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, to berth seven cruise liners at the Bridgetown Port and land more than 9 000 people into the tourism market."

..::Black PR Wire, "When you visit Barbados, you will notice that it is mostly a flat coral island. Although it is known for its excellent beaches, there are also rolling hills and many deep ridges and gullies, with an interesting distribution of flora and fauna. Within the Barbados coral core, there is a vast array of caves and underground lakes which provide an excellent supply of drinking water that is amongst the purest in the world. Geologically, Barbados is unique, being actually two land masses that merged together over the years. This and other anomalies make this Caribbean Island quite phenomenal, and there are geological structures that you will find only in Barbados."

The Daily Record: "Okay folks, game's up.

You might have been back at work for a week or more but the real sign that the holiday season is well and truly over is when Simon Cowell, Michael Winner and their over-blown mates finally peel themselves off the beaches of Barbados."

The Post Chronicle: "Music mogul Simon Cowell is reportedly splashing out $14.5 million (£10 million) to build a dream holiday home in Barbados.

The reality TV judge, who recently split from long-term girlfriend Terri Seymour, wants to build the ultimate bachelor pad on the Caribbean island, according to U.K. newspaper the Daily Mirror."

...if true then we may be having a another celebrity wedding in Barbados.....maybe

The Nation Newspaper "BARBADOS RECORDED five cruise ships in port yesterday which bodes well for the 2009 winter season.

Hundreds of tourists could be seen lining the shores along Browne's Beach and Brandon's Beach, but they also were paying visits to the Cricket Legends of Barbados museum on Fontabelle, St Michael."